Federal ministers now have much in common with the Canadian
loonie. Of little interest most of the time, they are big news when
rising or falling spectacularly fast.

Federal ministers now have much in common with the Canadian loonie. Of little interest most of the time, they are big news when rising or falling spectacularly fast.

Until she became an embarrassment, Helena Guergis was a model new-age minister. Not noticeably useful beyond providing a beguiling question period backdrop for the Prime Minister, the now defrocked Guergis was an asset only until she became a liability.

Most of Stephen Harper's cabinet fits that mould. With few exceptions, ministers, alone or collectively, are a no-name bunch with marginal influence and impact.

More trend than phenomenon, the steady reduction of ministers to roughly the same irrelevance as backbenchers is part of the power shift away from elected politicians toward appointed operatives. To put that progression in context, it was back when Jean Chrétien was running the country that Donald Savoie, an academic, author and close observer of how Ottawa really works, exposed cabinet as not much more than a focus group.

Chrétien, unlike Harper, was not a micro-manager. Ministers knew not to bother him with departmental minutiae or, unless specifically asked, to offer opinions on the defining decisions of the day.

From refusing to join the George W. Bush coalition of the willing in Iraq to imposing rules on sovereignty referendums, the buck started and stopped with the tough Little Guy from Shawinigan. Chrétien was well schooled in the dark political arts and Harper absorbed those lessons just as he learned from Paul Martin the dangers of exponential consultations and boundless dithering.

One result is an administration known for the Prime Minister's rigid control. Another is ministers who aren't trusted to shape, explain or defend public policies or the Conservative record.

Spinning narratives is delegated to Harper's paid loyalists – spokesman Dimitri Soudas now steps to the microphone more frequently than most ministers – and a few trusted veterans of federal and Ontario Conservative politics. Comforting as that may be for Harper, it raises the spectre of a cabinet that serves little practical purpose beyond representing the regions. Or as cynics would say, funnelling federal spending.

Until her fall last week, Guergis snugly fit the first part of that pattern. A minister who will be better remembered for an airport hissy-fit than for any advancement in the status of women was little more than a warm body in a strategically placed Commons seat.

Now after a tumble from grace, she is being linked, fairly or not, with the grittier side of politics. By so dramatically dumping her from the Conservative caucus as well as cabinet and, most of all, by calling the cops, Harper stirred the wild speculation now swirling around reports of influence peddling. Time and investigation may prove that's unfair to Guergis.

What has been clear for some time is that empty cabinets serve the country poorly. Stripped nearly bare in the rush to concentrate power in the Prime Minister, they fail to generate innovative ideas, challenge those trickling down from above or create political players hefty enough to act as stabilizing counter-weights.

Harper is now paying the public price of appointing a weak junior minister and then protecting her long after she chose postcard Prince Edward Island to make the public transition from superficial asset to substantial liability. But ultimately, Canadians suffer the greater punishment when cabinets and ministers become no more than the Prime Minister's props.

James Travers' column appears Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday.

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